Fire and Rescue NSW do not know whether all its firefighters are fit to perform their full range of operational duties. Once they are employed, there are no formal checks on firefighters’ health and fitness during their career. Also, while a health standard for firefighters has been developed it has not been agreed nor implemented.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #239 - released 1 April 2014

Today the Auditor-General of New South Wales, Grant Hehir, released his Volume One Report to Parliament for 2014. The observations included in this report are designed to inform readers of common findings from the 2013 financial and performance audits so agencies and audit committees can use them to identify issues that may be relevant to their organisations.

Under appropriate conditions, shared service arrangements are a proven method for obtaining significant cost savings from productivity improvements and economies of scale. Benefits realised in NSW from shared services are significantly below what was expected. At June 2003 general government agencies had achieved savings of $13.6 million, or 5 per cent, of projected accumulated savings of $297 million to be achieved by 2006. Implementation costs are estimated to be $79.4 million. Most agencies had yet to fully implement the Government’s shared services strategy supporting productivity and salary increases.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #128 - released 3 November 2004

We recognise that Home and Community Care Services (HCS) operates in an increasingly difficult and changing environment. However, HCS does not have the capacity to meet these needs. Currently at least 50 per cent of those eligible to receive a service will miss out. Under the current system, there are inequities in service delivery. The ability to receive a service depends on when the applicant calls, where they live and if this coincides with service hours becoming available at the local HCS branch. In addition, applicants who miss out on a service may not automatically be referred to another provider. HCS needs to better manage both demand and expectations regarding access to the services it provides.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #127 - released 13 October 2004

This audit follows our earlier studies on ambulance response times, on waiting times for elective (i.e. non-urgent) surgery and on the ‘Code Red’ status of hospital emergency departments. Those audits indicated that matching resources to the ever-increasing numbers of people seeking emergency treatment was certainly an issue, but not the only issue. We found that problems were also occurring at the ‘interface’ between different parts of the health system – when patients arrive in ambulances at emergency departments or when they need to be admitted from emergency departments to hospital wards.

Parliamentary reference - Report number #125 - released 28 July 2004